[Via FrontPage Mag]
While many have rightfully criticized U.S. President Obama’s recent assertion that the Islamic State “is not Islamic,” some of his other equally curious but more subtle comments pronounced in the same speech have been largely ignored.
Consider the president’s invocation of the “grievances” meme to explain the Islamic State’s success: “At this moment the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL—which calls itself the Islamic State.”
Obama’s logic, of course, is fortified by an entire apparatus of professional apologists who make the same claim. Thus Georgetown professor John Esposito—whose apologetics sometimes morph into boldfaced lies—also recently declared that “The “primary drivers [for the Islamic State’s violence] are to be found elsewhere,” that is, not in Islam but in a “long list of grievances.”
In other words and once again, it’s apparently somehow “our fault” that Islamic State Muslims are behaving savagely—crucifying, beheading, enslaving, and massacring people only on the basis that they are “infidels”: thus when IS herds and slaughters “infidel” and/or Shia men (citing the example of the prophet)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS captures “infidel” Yazidi and Christian women and children, and sells them on the sex-slave market (citing Islamic teachings)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did; when IS bombs churches, breaks their crosses, and tells Christians to convert or die (citing Islamic scriptures)—that’s because they’re angry at something America did.
Although the “grievance” meme has always flown in the face of logic, it became especially popular after the 9/11 al-Qaeda strikes on America. The mainstream media, following the Islamist propaganda network Al Jazeera’s lead, uncritically picked up and disseminated Osama bin Laden’s videotapes to the West where he claimed that al-Qaeda’s terror campaign was motivated by grievances against the West—grievances that ranged from U.S. support for Israel to U.S. failure to sign the Kyoto Agreement concerning climate change.
Of course, that was all rubbish, and I have written more times than I care to remember about how in their internal Arabic-language communiques to fellow Muslims that never get translated to English, al-Qaeda and virtually every Islamist organization make it a point to insist that jihad is an Islamic obligation that has nothing to do with grievances.
Consider Osama’s own words in an internal letter to fellow Saudis:
Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue — one that demands our total support, with power and determination, with one voice — and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?
Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: [1] either willing submission [conversion]; [2] or payment of the jizya, through physical, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; [3] or the sword — for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live. The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)
Conversion, submission, or the sword is, of course, the mission of the Islamic State—not alleviating “grievances.”
Worst of all, unlike al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, from day one of its existence, has made it very clear—in Osama’s words, “with power and determination, with one voice”—that its massacres, enslavements, crucifixions, and beheadings of “infidels” are all based on Islamic law or Sharia—not silly “grievances” against the West… Keep reading
bernie says
The late Osama bin Laden, as well as Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, have also cited the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as grievances against the United States.
What a bunch of bullshit. There were virtually no Muslims killed in those A-bombings; about 10 percent of those killed were Christians (due to the large Christian population of Nagasaki, and also due to some Korean and European Christians who resided in those two cities).
Almost all the remaining victims were Buddhists and/or Shintoists. And we all know how extremist Muslims greatly respect Buddhists, and also how they respect polytheists such as Shintoists (sarcasm here).
The extremist Muslims are so cynical and mendacious that it would be funny, except that so many useful idiots on the Western Left buy into their gibberish.
Beagle says
Funny how grievance-based reasoning is completely abandoned when it comes to victims of Islam. There would be exactly zero sympathy if a 9/11 family member plotted bombings. Unlike Islamic terror which is epidemic, a movie was actually made about an imaginary 9/11 family member committing terror on an airplane.
Serbian terrorists attacking the US, if they existed other than in Hollywood, which they should under the grievance narrative given how much we bombed Serbia, would not be examined to determine the “root causes” or for their “economic marginalization”.
Islam is the special exception to everything, just the way Islamic supremacists want it.
It bears repeating over and over, quote:
…in their internal Arabic-language communiques to fellow Muslims that never get translated to English, al-Qaeda and virtually every Islamist organization make it a point to insist that jihad is an Islamic obligation that has nothing to do with grievances.
Dave J says
The truth is that Islam has a long list of pre-existing grievances as spelled out very clearly in the Quran. To portray Muslims as primarily victims is to contribute to their long campaign of deceit and pursuit of supremacy.
So it would be a “religion of peace” if it weren’t for all these pesky grievances that justify a war against all who disagree with them?
bernie says
At the end of World War 2, the surviving Jewish people had some genuine grievances against many non-Jewish Germans and other European Gentiles, but you don’t see Jews flying planes into German buildings, or blowing up German churches, or demanding that all Gentiles convert to Judaism or die.
mortimer says
The only ‘grievance’ that counts is that Allah HATES disbelievers and wants them tortured and exterminated. All Muslims are deputized to carry out this Final Solution…only it is called jihad in Arabic.
john spielman says
i think that if islamic atrocities against the west continue, there WILL be real reasons for grievences by mulsims
mortimer says
Ordinary people are taking note and they will react when they see supremacism. I think we have turned a corner. The next stage will be the activation of overt, vocal criticism of Islam and then there will overt activism to prevent more mosques and reduce Muslim immigration.
Jerry says
Ideally there should be no grievances left if non-Muslims wake up and properly deal with Jihad and Islam.
There is an ancient Jewish commandment which is, unfortunately, insufficiently obeyed:
The one who comes to kill you – wake up earlier to kill him first.
Jerry says
What if non-Muslims decided to do unto Muslims exactly the same as what Muslims have been doing for 1400 years and still continue and intend to do unto non-Muslims?
Jerry says
The main Muslim “grievance” is that there are still non-Muslims around, but even this is part of the Mohammadan fake religion deception.
The only reason for Mohammad invnting the religion of hate was to create and excuse for his criminal activities of caravan robberies, invading and plundering human settlements, slave (including sex slave hunting and trading, murder, rape, pillage and paedophillia, of female and male toddler captives (with a bit of adult homosexuality on the side which tolerated in himself but not in others).
Angemon says
I think there are legitimate muslim grievances to be found out there. For example, the way shiites have been persecuted by sunni muslims since the death of muhammad. Or the way how the ahmadi are persecuted by other muslim sects, particularly in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – not that it stops ahmadi spokespeople in the West from defending Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.